The dramatic descent of spot prices to five-year lows in both directions on the trans-Atlantic shipping route has sparked questions about how low the price can go, and if the once sleepy, stable route has changed.

Concern over the fate of negotiations toward the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, the snail’s pace of eurozone economic growth, growing fears of an imminent Italian banking crisis and the U.K.’s unexpected vote to quit the European Union is undermining the calm of the trans-Atlantic container trade.

Hyundai Merchant Marine is working to assure the shipping public that it will continue to remain operational after the revelation that the South Korean carrier had been left out of the world’s newest shipping alliance, THE Alliance.